Thursday, September 26, 2013

Before I explain why British bathrooms are superior to those
in the US, let me first do some level setting.

I’m not a rabid anglophile. I do appreciate much of the
history, though only from a military perspective. I like Dr. Who but I’m not a
rabid fan. I love Sherlock Holmes. That’s it, no qualification around that, I
love Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s collective works and don’t care who knows it. So
while I do appreciate some things British, I never had an overwhelming desire
to travel there any more than anywhere else with the exception of Africa. Sorry
Africa, but while you have a lot going for you, if I wanted to be hacked to
death or burnt alive, I’d insource that job domestically and go to Detroit.

To be fair, as a child it never occurred to me that travel
was even in the cards for me beyond the occasional trip to Wisconsin and the
dream of some day seeing the Twin Cities. I dreamt of being Spiderman, knowing
it was a dream. The cruel truth of economics and logistics prohibited me from
dreaming of things I thought were firmly out of my reach. So England became no
different than Narnia. Places I read about, but as far as I was concerned, I
had a better chance of finding a portal in a wardrobe.

Then I grew up and achieved more than I thought possible. I
dared to dream of cruises and foreign travel. England, Scotland and Ireland
were at the tope of my list. So my company sent me to India in 2006. What I
found is that except for the jetlag, I liked it. Two jobs and a bunch of travel
later, I finally arrived in the UK for the first time.

This is my third trip and all have been for business. I
haven’t been able to do many tourist activities, but I have seen a few sites. I
did get to see the relatively new 221 B Baker street museum and gift shop. I
did get to see Big Ben from a taxi window. Those were cool, I won’t lie, but
they pale in comparison to my greatest UK discovery, the British bathroom.

For those of you that have never traveled between these two
countries, let me explain. The entire bathroom isn’t necessarily superior,
though most have a better design. The key feature that makes them superior are commode
the stalls. Urinals are about the same, though the Brits do seem to space them
out a bit more and have better dividers. I’ve also never seen a sink design in
the UK with a flat counter top and over pressured faucets that cause water to
pool so that when you lean forward to wash your hands or check something in the
mirror, the water absorbs into you pants in the groin region.

While not all British bathrooms are so well equipped, I have to share this pic of a this brilliant vending machine that takes care of all of the man's and woman's needs and manages to address some of the most common excuses as well.

If only they had these a century before, though I'd rather not meet the man or woman that needs the giants 100 pack of tic tacs.

And now back to my story.

First I’ll describe the British stall. Have you ever heard
the term “water closet”? Well, that is appropriate, because each stall is a
small room with a solid door and no gaps or cracks. It shuts and you have true
privacy. I’ve been in a few now and they don’t skimp on wall thickness either.
The guy next to me could be suffering from a trip to Chipotle, but I would not
hear his screams. Added bonus feature in case you’re not sure of the door is
shut by accident, most have a lock on the inside that triggers an “Occupied”
sign on the outer door similar but not quite like they have on airplane
bathrooms.

The US stalls on the other hand are poorly crafted from
sheet metal and painted horrific colors. They are designed poorly and quickly
thrown up so most have larger than planned gaps and are about 18 inches off the
floor and top off around six feet high, leaving plenty of gap before you reach
the ceiling. Because of poor alignment, many of the flimsy slide locks do not
fully seat and a large percentage open when any of the connected walls are bumped.Worse, since almost all of them shut as their
default position, you have no way of knowing if they are occupied by looking at
the door. There are several slick moves used by men across America so we aren’t
mistaken for some pervert trying to catch a look. There’s the quick duck down
to look for feet, but this move is rarely done when someone is at the sink or at
a urinal. You can walk by as if uninterested and glance quickly through the ½
inch wide crack to see if there is a shape in the gloom. A more patient person
can hang back by the door and listen for movement or breathing, but if detected
that might only narrow it down to one of the two being occupied, not
definitively identify which one.

Desperate or impatient men just grab hold of the door and
pull. This only works if it is empty. If not and the lock miraculously holds,
most occupants feel the need to say something like. “I’m in here” or “be done
in a minute”, as if the locked door weren’t a giveaway. Sometimes the door
gives and you’re face to face with someone in one of several stages of
completion.

You may argue that the British method is more expensive, but
I challenge that assumption. Post construction work would be, but if it were
part of the plan, the increase per building would be negligible. We broke away
for many reasons over two hundred years ago, but we have bonded since then and
it’s high time we recognize we can still learn from our brothers and sisters
across the sea. I call on all of my fellow American’s to rise up with me and
demand a better bathroom experience.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

For the record, since some that read
this would have no way of knowing, my disclaimer is that I am straight and
married.

The title of this blog post is Marriage
Equality, but it’s really just about Equality.

There are those that oppose marriage
equality and claim that it's on the grounds of their religious beliefs,
specifically referring to the Christian bible. The problem with claiming that
you are against marriage equality because of your Christian faith is that it is
contradictory to Christ’s teachings and it does make you a hypocrite.

Hypocrisy is part of the human condition. Few people that
act hypocritical are aware of it at the time. It’s something I’ve tried to
avoid but I’m painfully aware that I’ve been guilty of this in the past and
will likely fall into this trap again. I will continue to strive to avoid it
and do some reflection when it’s pointed out to me.

I don’t believe that changing your mind is hypocrisy. If you
have a firm opinion at 20 and through investigation or reflection or perhaps by
someone presenting new information or old information in a new light and you
change your opinion at 21 or even 40, I don’t believe that makes you a
hypocrite.

What makes you a hypocrite, is saying you believe one thing
and then without stating a change in opinion, you do another. Hypocrisy is
especially obvious when a person puts forth their opinion, acts contrary to
that opinion and then states the opinion again, especially when casting
judgment on the conduct of others.

With regards to the issue of
homosexuality, you have two choices:

Either you believe being Gay is a
choice, and since it is called out in the Old Testament as an abomination it is
a sin.

Or,

You believe people are born gay in
which case it is not a choice but how god made them and can’t be a sin.

Let’s assume you fall in the first
example and you use the bible to argue against marriage equality. The odd thing
about this is that despite it being the Old Testament, I don’t hear people of
the Jewish fail making this claim. Christians fall under the New Covenant and
have since the resurrection of Christ. The Old Testament is no longer binding.
And while the Old Covenant held to the letter of the law, the New Covenant
holds Christians to a higher standard by requiring them to meet the Spirit of
the New Testament. So before Christ, you were only in trouble if you killed
someone as it would violate one of the 10 Commandments, while after the
Resurrection, you are now in trouble even if you spend night and day wishing
someone were dead even though never act on the impulse.

Speaking of the Ten Commandments, let’s
just say you’re old school and want to cleave to that old Covenant. Thou Shalt
Not Be Gay is not one of the Ten. I’ve read through them and it’s a pretty good
list of things you shouldn’t do if you want to be a functioning member of
society. Then there are the Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Lust,
Pride, Envy and Gluttony. Nope, being gay is not one of the seven.

While we’re on the topic of sin, if you
are a claiming to be a Christian, then you know that there are two types, venial
(or minor) and mortal (which are pretty serious). Most Christian scholars claim
that homosexual thoughts or urges would be venial, while acting upon those
urges would be mortal. Why? Two reasons. First, that it is sex that occurs
outside marriage, and second, that the specific act is considered unnatural.

The first is a catch 22, since if we
allow homosexuals to marry then it will no longer be a sin to have sex with
your spouse. The second one is pretty straight forward, but guess who else
commits unnatural sexual acts? Anyone that does anything besides Missionary
Position, that’s who.

I think this is the part where we quote
the big guy himself:

John 8:7 “He who is
without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Or how about this oldie but goodie:

Matthew 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too
will be judged.”

Matthew 7:1 is the perfect segue to my next point. Even if
you believe and can prove once and for all beyond a shadow of a doubt that
homosexuality is a sin and those that practice it are going to hell, it is none
of your (what for it) fucking business!

A person’s relationship with whatever god they do or do not
believe in is a personal one. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s not your job
to stop people from sinning. If it was, you should start with the Ten
Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins. When you manage to stop committing them
yourself and manage to get the rest of the world to stop committing those, you can
take on Homosexuality. In fact, let’s agree that it is #18 on the list. Go fix
1 through 17 and come back and talk to me.

But hey, let’s pretend that you have completed that miracle
and you want to tackle #18. Even if you get to that point, you have no business
trying to enforce your religious beliefs on others through the law of the land.
Their soul is their business, what we are talking about is public policy.

The United States of America was not founded on Christian
freedom. It was founded on religious freedom. Some people forget that. The
constitution is there to protect people from your oppressive views just as it
is there to stop others that may want to interfere with your right to worship
Christ.

I know that’s a tough concept for some people, but you need
to deal with it. People have the right in the USA to believe whatever they want
to as long as those rights don’t infringe upon the rights of others. This could
occur if some devil worshiper claimed sacrificing another person was a
religious right. No, sorry but that crosses the line and impinges on the other
persons freedom to live.

Our Constitution also claims that all people are created
equal. We know that isn’t true. Blacks were 3/5ths for a long time and women
only got the right to vote in 1920. The law is not always compassionate, but
Christianity is supposed to be. It’s kind of a requisite for being a Christian
unless you are a Hypocrite.

But it’s even worse than that. We aren’t just talking about
some random public policy issue. Using any argument to fight against marriage
equality allows an environment of intolerance to flourish. By not recognizing
homosexuals as equal members of society, we allow some people to see them as
inferior, just as blacks and women were seen as inferior and still are by some.
I consider it counter to Christ’s teachings to allow a group of people to be
treated as less than human. Whether you like it or not, you are actively
contributing to the creation of the hostile environment where others, that also
see homosexuals as inferior find it acceptable to take violent action against
them.

You may lull yourself to sleep by convincing yourself that
you are just against marriage equality for personal and religious reasons, but
you are lying to yourself if you deny that you are actively contributing to a
climate of hate and violence. Only through acceptance and equality, can we stop
the cycle of violence. If you claim to be a Christian, you have no other choice
than to stop the oppression of homosexuals. Your loud and angry voices only add
fuel to the fire. They give strength to those that strike the blows in the USA
and abroad. The intolerance and cruelty that translate into the culture of
intolerance and hate is fueled by your words and deeds. It emboldens cowards to
brutalize those they see as less than human and worse you manage to convince
some people when they are young that they are less than human and unworthy to
the point where they kill themselves.

Do you feel proud of these acts of violence? Do you truly believe
that you are in no part responsible for these heinous acts?

For my part, I was never homophobic. Despite that fact that
I am not a good Christian, I was raised to believe that people have a right to
pursue happiness as long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others. In my
twenties, I was ambivalent to the LGBT cause because I didn’t see how it affected
me and I personally had nothing against them. If it was brought to a vote, I
would vote for their equality, but it wasn’t something I gave much thought to.
I felt that because I saw them as equal under the law and morally, I had the
high ground and that was enough.

It took the violent actions and cruel laws passed in Russia
for me to wake up to the fact that being on the side lines when it comes to
equality for all people is not a justifiable position. I’m not sure why it took
me until I was 47 to have this epiphany, but it isn’t good enough to simply
stand idly by. Edmund Burke was right, “All that is necessary for the triumph
of evil is that good men do nothing.” We can update that quote to ‘good
people’.

Does this mean that I’m going to start marching in LGBT
parades? No. I hate parades, always have. What will I do? Try to change minds
by posting up a blog on the subject, teach my children love and tolerance of
those that are different from themselves, when given the opportunity
respectfully debate the issue with someone that I think is salvageable and vote
out politicians that contribute to the culture of hate and intolerance.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

There has been a lot of political rhetoric on the Internet
in the last few weeks around Syria. The latest is this poster. Read it and let
it sink in.

I’ve had enough and I have to call bullshit. First, let me
make it clear I think we need to stay the hell out of Syria. I will explain why
later, but let’s start with the fallacious argument laid out in this pithy
poster.

Using Benghazi as a basis for a reason why Obama shouldn’t
interfere in Syria, is bullshit. And this is all about Obama, not whether or not
the US should get involved in Syria. Everything is partisan these days and
that’s the problem. When we talk about putting US troupes in harms way, we need
to drop the political party bullshit and do what’s right for the USA.

There were 12 attacks on US Consulates while Bush Jr. was
President resulting in 60 deaths. Some of those deaths were even US citizens.
Clearly, no one gives a shit if some foreigners working at our Consulates die,
or they’d bring up the attack on the Peshawar, Pakistan Consulate in 2010 when
8 people died. But those dark faces don’t make as compelling of a poster as the
4 US white faces in the Benghazi tragedy. But to pretend that Obama doesn’t
care about the deaths of the American’s in the Benghazi tragedy implies that
Republicans do care. This is blatantly false since neither side raised the
issue of any of the previous attacks, of which there have been plenty resulting
in a lot of deaths of both American and non American people working in those
Consulates.

Besides the Consulate attacks, Bush Jr. also got us into two
wars that to date have resulted in the deaths of 6,756 US War Fighters. The
total casualties are slightly higher than that but clearly we don’t give a shit
about the deaths of our allies either. Fuck them until we need their support to
go do some more killing, and then they are pussies unless they back us, right?

By the very fact that all of these deaths are completely
ignored in context of the Benghazi outrage, it is clear that the deaths of the
4 American’s isn’t the driving force behind this obviously political attack.

Try fitting 6,756 young faces on a poster if you want some
outrage. The largest percentage of these deaths occurred in Iraq. Between the
two wars, even some of the more liberal democrats out there have agreed that we
needed to face our enemy in Pakistan. Remember our enemy? Al-Qaeda and the
Taliban? The ones that attacked us on 9/11/2001? There was no Al-Qaeda, Iraq
link. There were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. When that became
clear, what did the Republicans fall back on? They brought up the fact that
Saddam Hussein was an evil bastard because he gassed his own people. Sound
Familiar?

Now that a democrat in the White House is trying to use
military force against an evil bastard that gassed his own people, the
Republicans are going batshit crazy. I guess Obama should claim there are
Weapons of Mass Destruction in Syria. Guess what, there ARE. Sarin is defined
as a WMD, and we now have proof that they have it and used it. Actual proof,
not some bullshit lead from the CIA that didn’t pan out and was so weak not
even a liberal rag like The New York Times wouldn't have run with the story
until they had a more reliable second source. But so what? WMDs do exist in
countries outside of the United States and we will never get rid of them all.
Deal with it.

Just in case you think this is some rant from some anti war
liberal, the Republicans aren’t the only hypocrites. It just so happens that
with Obama in the White House, their hypocrisy is just more obvious because
they are on the attack.The
Democrats and their completely unbiased news agencies (we really need a sarcasm
font) made every casualty during the Bush presidency a
news story. Death toll stories ran monthly in print and on the air and there
seemed to be constant video footage of the violence. Suddenly, Obama gets into
office and no one cares about the number of US dead anymore. When was the last
time you saw horrific images from Afghanistan on the nightly news?

When the Republicans were faced with the reality of no WMDs
in Iraq and used the monster gassing his own people angle, the Democrats
scoffed, but now the shoe is on the other foot. Not only are there WMDs in
Syria, but a Democrat is using the excuse that a monster that gasses his own
people should be stopped with American military might.

Which is it people? What is our stance in America? Are we
justified intervening when a government gasses their own people? Is it OK if
they just blow them up and shoot them?Are we the world’s police? What about the WMDs? They exist, but does
their existence present a Clear and Present danger to the United States? I hate
to break it to you, but the UK has Nuclear weapons. Israel has Nuclear weapons.
But hey, they're our allies so that’s OK. We have nukes too, but killing people
with nukes is OK, just not nerve agent. We signed a treaty saying it was bad so
there is no way we still have some hidden away in some bunker.

Fact: Syria has not attacked our allies or us. Fact: Neither
side of the civil war in Syria would be our friends or friends of our allies.
Fact: Syria has WBDs and has used them on their own people in a civil war that
has raged for two years with a death toll estimated at 100,000. Fact: The
number of deaths from the Sarin gas attack is around 1,300, which is not even
1.3% since it brings the other number to at least 101,300 (these are all
estimates but close enough and in ratio to each other).

What is the right course of action for the US with regards
to Syria? Let’s break it down from a policy perspective, especially given what
we’ve learned in the Middle East in the last twelve years and slanted with my bias.

I think we were wrong to go to war with Iraq regardless of
how evil Saddam was. I think we were right to fight Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. I
think interfering in Syria’s civil war is not only wrong, but also at this
point hypocritical. We would have stood by and let the death toll rise to
double 100,000 or more and never lifted a finger, but because Bashar al-Assad
used Sarin gas, we must intervene by killing a bunch more Syrians? Both
political parties have changed sides and are now arguing their opponents
previous positions because the fact is they don’t give a shit about Syria. This
is about winning elections because both sides want to either stay in power or
get back into power for as long as they can. For the last forty years it has
become fashionable to use our armed forces for strictly political gain,
literally greasing the wheels of politics with the blood of our War Fighters
and the enemies that they in turn also kill.

We need to actually have a documented foreign policy that
clearly spells out when we try diplomacy first and when we simply move toward
the use of military force. We need further gradation to describe circumstances
when we use remote force vs. “boots on the ground” force. This policy should
not be administration specific, it should be divorced from the Executive Branch
with a clause to allow a President to make their case if they feel the
situation is not clearly covered by the policy that is voted on by the people
and enforced by Congress.

The main requirement for this policy would be to require a
clearly stated goal of the military action. What is our goal with Syria? Are we
attempting to remove Assad? Punish Assad? Destroy any other chemical weapons?
All I’ve heard is the President making a case for military action in Syria
using remote weapons with no “boots on the ground”. What is the objective? How
will we know when we are done? How many more terrorist attacks will we suffer in
the future as retaliation for our action in Syria?

Will there be any collateral damage from our bomb and
missile attacks? You bet your ass there will be. Will the number exceed 1,300?
Hard to say, but if they do, who would rationalize justification to attack us
in response, or will be OK because we killed them with conventional weapons?

To summarize because I covered a lot of ground in this rant:

1.The Democrats are hypocrites.

2.The Republicans are hypocrites.

3.Anyone that claims to care about Benghazi
because of the deaths of 4 Americans are either lying or ignorant and probably
the latter.

4.Iraq war bad.

5.Afghanistan war bad but necessary.

6.Fuck Syria.

7.We need a real foreign policy in place that is
less driven by the best interests of two political parties and more focused on
the interested of the citizens of the United States of America that reigns in the Executive Branch's abuse of power over the last fifty years.